Situation and Design 27 



grounds on a hot day, perhaps to an end of the vegetable garden 

 devoted to flowers, before the eyes may feast upon them, or a few 

 blossoms may be gathered for the dinner table, immeasurable 

 pleasure is lost, as well as a decorative adjunct to the house. What 

 would the little cottages of England look like without the gay 

 gardens around every doorstep ? How much a well composed 

 garden may add to the beauty of the house itself by extending 

 lines that end too abruptly, by softening sharp angles, by broad 

 ening the effect of a house that is too high for its width with masses 

 of shrubbery or hedges on its sides, by nestling around a house on a 

 hill top, or by reconciling another to a plain! The house and garden 

 should seem to be inseparable complements each of the other. 

 It is conceivable, however, that not every desirable building 

 site would permit a garden near the dwelling, that is, not a garden 

 of definite boundaries. A cottage perched on a cliff overhanging 

 the sea, for example, could not have flower beds and specimen 

 trees and shrubs on the rocky ledges, nor would they be desirable; 

 but the storm-resisting native pines and hardy stunted shrubbery 

 bayberry, barberries, St. John s wort and broom would grow 

 there and perfectly fit the landscape. A tide of flowers might 

 surge around the rocky base of the promontory, and some flotsam 

 and jetsam of bloom, like the sand-loving portulacca and sea-pinks, 

 extend almost to the waves. Where nature left off and art began 

 it would be impossible for any one but the maker of that garden 

 to say. Every region has its own wealth of native plants which 

 should be drawn from much more freely than it is. The laurel was 

 quite without honour in its own country until after it had become 

 a favourite in Europe, thanks to its introduction by Peter Kalm, 

 when we could actually import it from European nurseries more 

 conveniently than we could dig it from the woods at home. 



